Mayor Eric Adams’ prospects of landing a position in President Donald Trump’s administration have all but evaporated as the New York City mayoral contest approaches November, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
Insiders said Trump’s allies view Adams as an unattractive hire unless Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa also drops out, a condition that has so far not materialized. “The only way he’ll offer Adams a gig would be if both (the mayor and Sliwa) got out of the race,” one source with knowledge of Trump’s inner-circle thinking told The Post. The source added that Adams’ “stock is too low to offer him anything.”
The diminishing likelihood of a White House appointment follows a coordinated push by national conservative operatives to narrow a crowded field and block Democratic socialist front-runner Zohran Mamdani from winning in a multi-candidate contest. Those operatives have sought to engineer a one-on-one matchup between Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom Trump and his allies view as the most viable challenger.
Several operatives privately floated the idea of offering Adams a federal post — including reports that an ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia was discussed — as an incentive to withdraw from the ballot. Adams has also received at least one private-sector overture from Related Companies, led by Jeff Blau, a Cuomo backer, sources said. But Adams has not accepted any offers and is not actively pursuing a role tied to the Trump administration, according to the sources.
Trump on Tuesday questioned whether Adams would withdraw and said he had a closer relationship with Cuomo. "I read where he has no intention of getting out," Trump said on the "Sid and Friends in the Morning" show. "Cuomo I do know, but I would say this anybody is better than you know what… We're going to have a communist mayor in New York." The president conceded Cuomo would still be a long shot in a head-to-head contest with Mamdani, citing polls that show Mamdani ahead.
Adams has publicly insisted he will remain in the race. His campaign, however, is privately commissioning a poll to measure his standing and weigh the option of withdrawing next month, according to people familiar with the campaign. Adams told a private roundtable of city leaders this week that he was assessing his path forward, a report that his campaign spokesman, Todd Shapiro, denied. "He never alluded to leaving the race," Shapiro said, adding that Adams would "spend resources to get his message out and will then look at his own independent poll to make a decision."
The effort to clear the field faces legal and logistical hurdles. Sources said some national operatives underestimated how difficult it would be for Adams to remove himself from the November ballot under New York election law, which would require him to resign and move out of the city. With ballots scheduled to be printed Tuesday, that timeline would make a pre-election withdrawal complicated.
Polls have underscored Adams’ precarious position. An Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill survey released this month showed Mamdani with 43 percent support in a hypothetical head-to-head, Cuomo with 28 percent and Sliwa with 10 percent; Adams registered about 7 percent. Those numbers have driven urgency among outside actors who fear that a split moderate vote would hand the race to Mamdani.
Operatives who entered the fray included real estate figures and national political actors who, according to sources, have limited involvement in daily New York City politics. One source described the patchwork effort as chaotic. "It's a mess," the source said, noting the competing agendas of wealthy backers, Washington operatives and local political players who intensify their attention on the city only during mayoral cycles.
GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa has refused to leave the race, complicating any plan that would require both Adams and Sliwa to withdraw. The national effort also involved figures described by sources as having strong ties to Trump’s orbit; one such operative named in reporting was Steve Witkoff, whom sources described as the president’s special envoy to the Middle East.
With the ballots nearing production and no firm offers made public, Adams remains on track to appear on the November ballot while weighing his campaign’s internal polling. Outside actors continue to lobby for a thinner field to improve Cuomo’s chances against Mamdani, but as of now those moves have not produced the coordinated exits that would create the head-to-head matchup Trump and some allies prefer.
Campaign officials and the Trump team did not provide public comment beyond the statements cited by sources. The mayoral race now heads into its final weeks with Adams publicly committed to the campaign but privately assessing his options as operative interest and national political calculations continue to shape the contest.